Saudi Gender Emotional Expressions in Using Instagram

Abstract

There are plentiful studies exploring gender emotional differences. Gender and emotion stereotypes make people believe that there are certain emotions associated with each gender and this is supported by many studies. The purpose of this research is to analyze the emotional expressions of Saudi men and women in Instagram, a social networking service. This paper aims to explore the Saudi differences of emotional expressions. Also, if gender emotion stereotypes apply on these expressions or not. Data is collected through corpus analysis of Arabic comments for a certain post on Instagram. The results of this study demonstrate that there are differences in Saudis' expressions of emotions in which each gender uses different expressions. Additionally, gender stereotypes of emotions are applied to their emotional expressions that is men express negative emotions more while women express positive emotions. Another result is that women are found to be more emotional than men. Overall, the findings contribute to increase understanding of online emotional expressions of both Saudi genders.